epick poem. I could as easily apply to law as to tragick poetry." BOSWELL. "Yet, sir, you did apply to tragick poetry, not to law." JOHNSON. "Because, sir, I had not money to study law. Sir, the man who has vigour may walk to the east, just as well as to the west, if he happens to turn his head that way." BosWELL. "But, sir, 'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man may naturally do the one better than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down." JOHNSON "Nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. If you make manner. One mind is a vice, and holds fast; there's a good memory. Another is a file; and he is a disputant, a controversialist. Another is a razor; and he is sarcastical." We talked of Whitfield. He said, he was at the same college with him, and knew him before he began to be better than other talk, that if one is speaking at this end of the table, he'll speak to somebody at the other end. Burke, sir, is such a man, that if you met him for the first time in the street where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to you in such a manner, that, when you parted, you would say, this is an extraordinary man. Now, you may be long enough with me, without finding any thing extraordinary." He said, he believed Burke was intended for the law; but either had not money enough to follow it, or had not diligence enough. He said, he could not un-mind mechanical, you may argue in that derstand how a man could apply to one thing, and not to another. Robertson, said, one man had more judgment, another more imagination. JOHNSON. "No, sir; it is only, one man has more mind than another. He may direct it differently; he may, by accident, see the success of one kind of study, and take a desire to excel in it. I am per-people (smiling); that he believed he sinsuaded that had Sir Isaac Newton applied to poetry, he would have made a very fine the occasion on which it is spoken, on the particular manner of the speaker, on the person of whom it is applied, the previous introduction, and a thousand minute particulars which cannot be easily enumerated, that it is always dangerous to detach a witty saying from the group to which it belongs, and to set it before the eye of the spectator, divested of those concomitant circumstances, which gave it animation, mellowness, and relief. I ventured, however, at all hazards, to put down the first instances that occurred to me, as proofs of Mr. Burke's lively and brilliant fancy: but am very sensible that his numerous friends could have suggested many of a superior quality. Indeed, the being in company with him, for a single day, is sufficient to show that what I have asserted is well founded; and it was only necessary to have appealed to all who know him intimately, for a complete refutation of the heterodox opinion entertained by Dr. Johnson on this subject. He allowed Mr. Burke, as the reader will find hereafter, to be a man of consummate and unrivalled abilities in every light except that now under consideration; and the variety of his allusions, and splendour of his imagery, have made such an impression on all the rest of the world, that superficial observers are apt to overlook his other merits, and to suppose that wit is his chief and most prominent excellence; when in fact it is onty one of the many talents that he possesses, which are so various and extraordinary, that it is very difficult to ascertain precisely the rank and value of each.-BOSWELL. [Mr. Burke's happy application from Horace has been sometimes quoted as if he had said humeris fertur;" but that, besides being a departure from the text, would not suit so well with lege solutis. "Numeris fertur lege solutis" is, according to Mr. Burke's witty perversion, "he is carried by numbers unrestrained by law," that is, "a lawless mob"-ED.] cerely meant well, but had a mixture of poli- [How much a man deceives himself! Johnson, who has shown such powers in other lines of literature, failed as a tragic poet.-ED.] 2 That cannot be said now, after the flagrant part which Mr. John Wesley took against our American brethren, when, in his own name, he threw amongst his enthusiastick flock the very individual combustibles of Dr. Johnson's "Taxation no Tyranny;" and after the intolerant spirit which he manifested against our fellow-christians of the Roman Catholick communion, for which that able champion, Father O'Leary, has given him so hearty a drubbing. But I should think myself very unworthy, if I did not at the same time acknowledge Mr. John Wesley's merit, as a veteran "Soldier of Jesus Christ," who has, I do believe, turned many from darkness into light, and from the power of Satan to the living God.BOSWELL. 3 [Mr. Burke. See ante, p. 309.-ED] In the evening I introduced to Mr. Johnson 3 two good friends of mine, Mr. William Nairne, advocate, and Mr. Hamilton of Sundrum, my neighbour in the country, both of whom supped with us. I have preserved nothing of what passed, except that Dr. Johnson displayed another of his heterodox opinions-a contempt of tragick acting. He said, "the action of all players he thinks one of those parties upon the whole the best, and that to make it prevail, it must be generally supported, though, in particulars, it may be wrong. He takes its faggot of principles, in which there are fewer rotten sticks than in the other, though some rotten sticks, to be sure; and they cannot well be separated. But, to bind one's self to one man, or one set of men (who may be right to-day and wrong to-morrow), with-in tragedy is bad. It should be a man's out any general preference of system, I must disapprove 1." He told us of Cooke, who translated Hesiod, and lived twenty years on a translation of Plautus, for which he was always taking subscriptions; and that he presented Foote to a club in the following singular manner: "This is the nephew of the gentleman who was lately hung in chains for murdering his brother 2." 1 If due attention were paid to this observation, there would be more virtue even in politicks. What Dr. Johnson justly condemned has, I am sorry to say, greatly increased in the present reign. At the distance of four years from this conversation, 21st February, 1777, my Lord Archbishop of York, in his "sermon before the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts," thus indignantly describes the then state of parties: Parties once had a principle belonging to them, absurd, perhaps, and indefensible, but still carrying a notion of duty, by which honest minds might easily be caught. But they are now combinations of individuals, who, instead of being the sons and servants of the community, make a league for advancing their private interests. It is their business to hold high the notion of political honour. I believe and trust, it is not injurious to say, that such a bond is no better than that by which the lowest and wickedest combinations are held together; and that it denotes the last stage of political depravity." To find a thought, which just showed itself to us from the mind of Johnson, thus appearing again at such a distance of time, and without any communication between them, enlarged to full growth in the mind of Markham, is a curious object of philosophical contemplation. That two such great and luminous minds should have been so dark in one corner; that they should have held it to be "wicked rebellion" in the British subjects established in America, to resist the abject condition of holding all their property at the mercy of British subjects remaining at home, while their allegiance to our common lord the king was to be preserved inviolate, is a striking proof, to me, either that "he who sitteth in heaven" scorns the loftiness of human pride, or that the evil spirit, whose personal existence I strongly believe, and even in this age am confirmed in that belief by a Fell, nay, by a Hurd, has more power than some choose to allow.-BOSWELL. 2 [Mr. Foote's mother was the sister of Sir J. Dinely Gooddere, bart., and of Capt. Gooddere, who commanded H. M. S. Ruby, on board which, when lying in King's-road, Bristol, in January, study to repress those signs of emotion and passion, as they are called." He was of a directly contrary opinion to that of Fielding, in his "Tom Jones;" who makes Partridge say of Garrick, "Why, I could act as well as he mysslf. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did.” For, when I asked him, "Would not you, sir, start as Mr. Garrick does, if you saw a ghost?" He answered, "I hope not. If I did, I should frighten the ghost." Monday, 16th August.-Dr. William Robertson came to breakfast. We talked of Ogden on Prayer. Dr. Johnson said, The same arguments which are used against God's hearing prayer will serve against his rewarding good, and punishing evil. He has resolved, he has declared, in the former case as in the latter." He had last night looked into Lord Hailes's "Remarks on the History of Scotland." Dr. Robertson and I said, it was a pity Lord Hailes did not write greater things. His lordship had not then published his "Annals of Scotland." JOHNSON. "I remember I was once on a visit at the house of a lady for whom I had a high respect. There was a good deal of company in the room. When they were gone, I said to this lady, What foolish talking have we had!' 'Yes,' 1741, the latter caused his brother to be forcibly carried, and there barbarously murdered. Capt. Gooddere was, with two accomplices, executed for this offence in the April following. The circumstances of the case, and some other facts connected with this family, led to an opinion that Capt. Gooddere was insane; and some unhappy circumstances in Foote's life render it probable that he had not wholly escaped this hereditary irregularity of mind.-ED. Foote's first publication was a pamphlet in defence of his uncle's memory.—WALTER SCOTT.] 3 It may be observed, that I sometimes call my great friend Mr. Johnson, sometimes Dr. Johnson; though he had at this time a doctor's degree from Trinity College, Dublin. The university of Oxford afterwards conferred it upon him by a diploma, in very honourable terms. It was some time before I could bring myself to call him doctor; but, as he has been long known by that title, I shall give it to him in the rest of this Journal.-BOSWELL. [Johnson never, it seems, called himself doctor. See ante, p. 218, and post, 7th April, 1775.-ED.] 4 [See ante, p. 195.-ED.] said she, but while they talked, you said nothing. I was struck with the reproof. How much better is the man who does any thing that is innocent, than he who does nothing! Besides, I love anecdotes. I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connexion, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. If a man is to wait till he weaves anecdotes into a system, we may be long in getting them, and get but few, in comparison of what we might get." Dr. Robertson said, the notions of Eupham Macallan, a fanatick woman, of whom Lord Hailes gives a sketch, were still prevalent among some of the presbyterians; and, therefore, it was right in Lord Hailes, a man of known piety, to undeceive them. without your ever attempting to rescue her; and such a queen too! as every man of any gallantry of spirit would have sacrificed his life for." Worthy MR. JAMES KERR, keeper of the records. "Half our nation was bribed by English money." JOHNSON. "Sir, that is no defence: that makes you worse." Good MR. BROWN, keeper of the advocates' library. "We had better say nothing about it." BOSWELL. "You would have been glad, however, to have had us last war, sir, to fight your battles!" JOHNSON. "We should have had you for the same price, though there had been no union, as we might have had Swiss, or other troops. No, no, I shall agree to a separation. You have only to go home." Just as he had said this, I, to divert the subject, showed him the signed assurances of the three successive kings of the Hanover family, to maintain the presbyterian establishment in Scotland. "We'll give you that," said he, We walked out, that Dr. Johnson might see some of the things which we have to show at Edinburgh. We went to the parliament-house1, where the parliament of" into the bargain 3." Scotland sat, and where the ordinary lords of session hold their courts, and to the new session-house adjoining to it, where our court of fifteen (the fourteen ordinaries, with the lord president at their head) sit as a court of review. We went to the advocates' library, of which Dr. Johnson took a cursory view, and then to what is called the Laigh (or under) parliament-house, where the records of Scotland, which has an universal security by register, are deposited, till the great register office be finished. I was pleased to behold Dr. Samuel Johnson rolling about in this old magazine of antiquities. There was, by this time, a pretty numerous circle of us attending upon him. Somebody talked of happy moments for composition, and how a man can write at one time, and not at another. Nay,” said Dr. Johnson, "a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly 2 to it." 66 I here began to indulge old Scottish sentiments, and to express a warm regret, that, by our union with England, we were no more; our independent kingdom was lost. JOHNSON. "Sir, never talk of your independency, who could let your queen remain twenty years in captivity, and then be put to death, without even a pretence of justice, [It was on this visit to the parliament-house that Mr. Henry Erskine (brother of Lord Buchan and Lord Erskine), after being presented to Dr. Johnson by Mr. Boswell, and having made his bow, slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, whispering that it was for the sight of his bear. WALTER SCOTT.] We next went to the great church of St Giles, which has lost its original magnifi cence in the inside, by being divided into four places of presbyterian worship. "Come," said Dr. Johnson jocularly to Principal Robertson 4, "let me see what was once a church!" We entered that division which was formerly called the New Church, and of late the High Church, so well known by the eloquence of Dr. Hugh Blair. It is now very elegantly fitted up; but it was then shamefully dirty. Dr. Johnson said nothing at the time; but when we came to the great door of the royal infirmary, where, upon a board, was this inscription, "Clean your feet!" he turned about sliły, and said, "There is no occasion for putting this at the doors of your churches!" We then conducted him down the Posthouse-stairs, Parliament-close, and made him look up from the Cowgate to the highest building in Edinburgh (from which he had just descended), being thirteen floors or stories from the ground upon the back. elevation; the front wall being built upon the edge of the hill, and the back wall rising from the bottom of the hill several stories before it comes to a level with the front wall. We proceeded to the college, with the Principal at our head. Dr. Adam Fer 3 [The meaning seems to be that, in a fit of jacobite jocularity, Johnson was willing, in consideration of the dissolution of the Union, to allow the Hanover family to reign in Scotland, inferring, of course, that the Stuarts were to reign in England.-Ed.] 4 I have hitherto called him Dr. William RobThis word is commonly used to signify sul-ertson, to distinguish him from Dr. James Roblenly, gloomily; and in that sense alone it ap- ertson, who is soon to make his appearance, but pears in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary. I suppose he Principal, from his being the head of our college, meant by it," with an obstinate resolution, simi- is his usual designation, and is shorter: so I shall lar to that of a sullen man."-BOSWELL. use it hereafter.-BoswELL. was a great reciter of all sorts of things, serious or comical. I overheard him repeating here, in a kind of muttering tone, a line of the old ballad, "Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night." 66 And ran him through the fair body 3 !" gusson, whose "Essay on the History of Civil Society" gives him a respectable place in the ranks of literature, was with us. As the college buildings are indeed very mean, the Principal said to Dr. Johnson, that he must give them the same epithet that a jesuit did when showing a poor college abroad: "Hæ miseriæ nostræ." Dr. Johnson was, We returned to my house, where there however, much pleased with the library, met him, at dinner, the Duchess of Dougand with the conversation of Dr. James las 4, Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord Chief Robertson, professor of oriental languages, Baron [Orde], Sir William Forbes, Princithe librarian. We talked of Kennicott's edi-pal Robertson, Mr. Cullen, advocate. Betion of the Hebrew Bible, and hoped it would be quite faithful. JOHNSON. "Sir, I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit, as poisoning the sources of eternal truth." fore dinner, he told us of a curious conversation between the famous George Faulkner and him. George said, that England had drained Ireland of fifty thousand pounds in specie, annually, for fifty years. "How so, sir?" said Dr. Johnson: "you must have very great trade?" "No trade." "Very rich mines?" "No mines." "From whence, then, does all this money come?" "Come! why out of the blood and bowels of the poor people of Ireland!" I pointed out to him where there formerly stood an old wall enclosing part of the college, which I remember bulged out in a threatening mannner, and of which there was a common tradition similar to that concerning Bacon's study at Oxford, that it would fall upon some very learned man. He seemed to me to have an unaccountIt had some time before this been taken able prejudice against Swift 5; for I once down, that the street might be widened, took the liberty to ask him, if Swift had and a more convenient wall built. Dr. personally offended him, and he told me, Johnson, glad of an opportunity to have a he had not. He said to-day, "Swift is pleasant hit at Scottish learning, said "they clear, but he is shallow. In coarse humour have been afraid it never would fall." he is inferior to Arbuthnot; in delicate huWe showed him the royal infirmary, formour he is inferior to Addison. So he is which, and for every other exertion of generous publick spirit in his power, that nobleminded citizen of Edinburgh, George Drummond, will be ever held in honourable remembrance. And we were too proud not to carry him to the abbey of Holyrood House, that beautiful piece of architecture, but, alas! that deserted mansion of royalty, which Hamilton of Bangour, in one of his elegant poems 2, calls "A virtuous palace, where no monarch dwells." I was much entertained while Principal Robertson fluently harangued to Dr. Johnson, upon the spot, concerning scenes of his celebrated History of Scotland. We surveyed that part of the palace appropriated to the Duke of Hamilton, as keeper, in which our beautiful Queen Mary lived, and in which David Rizzio was murdered, and also the state rooms. Dr. Johnson 2 [See ante, 171.-ED.] inferior to his contemporaries, without putting him against the whole world. I doubt if the Tale of a Tub' was his; it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are indisputably his. If it 3 The stanza from which he took this line is, They rose up by thousands three; And ran him through the fair body!"—BOSWELL 66 [There probably was no opportunity for what could be, in strictness, called personal offence, as there was no personal intercourse between Swift and Johnson; but the editor agrees with Mr. Boswell in suspecting that there was some such cause for Johnson's otherwise " unaccount [We may suspect that Mr. Boswell's admi-able prejudice” (see ante, p. 51). What could ration of Hamilton was enhanced by something even stronger than mere nationality. Mr. Hamilton was a gentleman of Ayrshire, Mr. Boswell's own county, and actually bore arms at Culloden for the jacobite cause. The poem from which this line is quoted is called an epitaph, and is filled with alternate satire and eulogy on persons now forgotten. The line itself appears to be nonsense; "a virtuous hovel, were no shepherd dwells, "would have just as much meaning. ED.] Johnson mean by calling Swift" shallow?” If he be shallow, who, in his department of literature, is profound? Without admitting that Swift was "inferior in coarse humour to Arbuthnot ** (of whose precise share in the works to which he is supposed to have contributed, we know little or nothing), it may be observed, that he who is second to the greatest masters of different styles may be said to be the first on the whole. See as to the Tale of a Tub, ante, p. 202 —En. . was his, I shall only say, he was impar | you must consider that wise and great men sibi." We gave him as good a dinner as we could. Our Scotch muir-fowl, or grouse, were then abundant, and quite in season; and, so far as wisdom and wit can be aided by administering agreeable sensations to the palate, my wife took care that our great guest should not be deficient. Sir Adolphus Oughton, then our deputy commander in chief, who was not only an excellent officer, but one of the most universal scholars I ever knew, had learned the Erse language, and expressed his belief in the authenticity of Ossian's Poetry. Dr. Johnson took the opposite side of that perplexed 2 question, and I was afraid the dispute would have run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lort Monboddo's notion of men having tails, and called him a judge à posteriori, which amused Dr. Johnson, and thus hostilities were prevented. At supper we had Dr. Cullen, his son the advocate, Dr. Adam Fergusson, and Mr. Crosbie, advocate 3. Witchcraft was introduced. Mr. Crosbie said he thought it the greatest blaspnemy to suppose evil spirits counteracting the Deity, and raising storms, for instance, to destroy his creatures. JOHNSON. Why, sir, if moral evil be consistent with the government of Deity, why may not physical evil be also consistent with it? It is not more strange that there should be evil spirits than evil_men: evil únembodied spirits, than evil embodied spirits. And as to storms, we know there are such things; and it is no worse that evil spirits raise them than that they rise." CROSBIE. "But it is not credible that witches should have effected what they are said in stories to have done." JOHNSON. "Sir, I am not defending their credibility. I am only saying that your arguments are not good, and will not overturn the belief of witchcraft.-(Dr. Fergusson said to me aside, He is right.')-And then, sir, you have all mankind, rude and civilized, agreeng in the belief of the agency of preternatural powers. You must take evidence; 1 [Lord Stowell remembers with pleasure the elegance and extent of Sir Adolphus Oughton's literature, and the suavity of his manners.ED.] 2 [A question perplexed only by national prejudices, heightened, in a few cases, by individual obstinacy.-ED.] have condemned witches to die." CROSBIE. "But an act of parliament put an end to witchcraft." JOHNSON. 66 No, sir, witchcraft had ceased; and, therefore, an act of parliament was passed to prevent persecution for what was not witchcraft. Why it ceased we cannot tell, as we cannot tell the reason of many other things. Dr. Cullen, to keep up the gratification of mysterious disquisition, with the grave address for which he is remarkable in his companionable as in his professional hours, talked, in a very entertaining manner, of people walking and conversing in their sleep. I am very sorry I have no note of this 4. We talked of the ouran-outang, and of Lord Monboddo's thinking that he might be taught to speak. Dr. Johnson treated this with ridicule. Mr. Crosbie said that Lord Monboddo believed the existence of every thing possible; in short, that all which is in posse might be found in esse. JOHNSON. "But, sir, it is as possible that the ouranoutang does not speak, as that he speaks. However, I shall not contest the point. I should have thought it not possible to find a Monboddo; yet he exists." I again mentioned the stage. JOHNSON. "The appearance of a player, with whom I have drunk tea, counteracts the imagination that he is the character he represents. Nay, you know, nobody imagines that he is the character he represents. They say, 'See Garrick! how he looks to-night! See how he'll clutch the dagger!' That is the buzz of the theatre." Tuesday, 17th August.-Sir William Forbes came to breakfast, and brought with him Dr. Blacklock 5, whom he introduced to Dr. Johnson, who received him with a most humane complacency; "Dear Dr. Blacklock, I am glad to see you!" Blacklock seemed to be much surprised when Dr. Johnson said "it was easier to him to write poetry than to compose his Dictionary. His mind was less on the stretch in doing the one than the other 6. Besides, composing a dictionary requires books and a desk: you can make a poem walking in the fields, or lying in bed." Dr. Blacklock spoke of scepticism in morals and religion with apparent uneasiness, as if he wished 4 [See in the Life of Blacklock, in Anderson's Brit. Poets, an anecdote of Dr. Blacklock's somnambulism, which may very probably have been one of the topics on this occasion.-ED.] ⚫ [See ante, 207.-ED.] 3 [Lord Stowell recollects that Johnson was [There is hardly any operation of the intel treated by the Scotch literati with a degree of lect which requires nicer and deeper considera deference bordering on pusillanimity; but he ex- tion than definition. A thousand men may cepts from that observation Mr. Crosbie, whom write verses, for one who has the power of defihe characterises as an intrepid talker, and thening and discriminating the exact meaning of only man who was disposed to stand up (as words and the principles of grammatical arrangethe phrase is) to Johnson.-ED.] ment.-ED.] |